Geoff Calkins: Kids + mud = joy at day camp of good, clean fun

Abby Fogerty, 7, splashes into a pit of muddy water that's the centerpiece of Episcopal Day Camp -- fondly referred to by regulars as "Mud Camp." The children's retreat is held for three weeks each summer at Saint Columba Episcopal Conference Center in Bartlett.

Olivia Imig, 11, speeds down a quarter mile long water slide during Episcopal Day Camp. The camp, warmly referred to by participants as mud camp, takes place for three weeks each summer at Saint Columbia Episcopal Center for rising first graders through rising sixth graders.

Campers quickly learn that mud isn't the only means for getting dirty. Allen Hughes, 9, is smeared with peanut butter for the "Messy Olympics" that included an attempt to see how many Goldfish crackers would stick to his face.

Geoff Calkins

Think like an otter!" Trip said, by way of advice.

Really? An otter? How does an otter think?

"Just slide," said Cole, 13.

So I slid. On my belly, down the tarpaulin, over roots and around curves, a quarter mile, into -- what else? -- a giant mud puddle.

"You got to admit, this is cool," said Tim Geski, 64.

I gotta admit, this is waaaay cool.

It's called Mud Camp. Just Mud Camp, although it does have an official name.

"It's Episcopal Day Camp," said Geski, which sounds much too -- how to put it? -- neat.

"It's about mud and water," said Geski, the director of the camp.

Isn't it a good thing someone thought of that?

There are computer camps and Harry Potter camps and fashion camps and investment camps. There are spy camps and Dungeon & Dragons camps and nudist camps (really!) and spinning camps.

This camp is simpler. This camp is based on the uncomplicated idea that kids + mud = joy.

"Wholesome activities produce wholesome kids," said Geski.

Someone should turn that into a bumper sticker. Or maybe a whole book on parenting. It won't be Geski, alas.

After 18 years, he's stepping down as director of the St. Columba Episcopal Conference Center in Bartlett, so this will be his very last week of Mud Camp.

It wasn't called Mud Camp back when he started. It was barely a camp.

"We had 68 kids," he said. Now the number is roughly 750 over three weeks.

The secret: mud. Or, at least, mud as a shorthand for something else.

"It's about creative play," Geski said. "These days, creative play is gone. It's all . . ." Here Geski starts punching the air with his thumbs, as if he were punching an invisible video game.

"I grew up in Minnesota, and we played differently," he said. "We took what we had and made something out of it."

When Geski took over at St. Columba, he applied the same principle. He had acres of woods. He had a gravel road. He had a big hole, created when someone shoveled away a bunch of dirt to help level the road.

"We decided to run hoses to it," said Geski. "That's how we got the mud pit."

Next up, a water slide. Geski had a really long path through the woods and down a hill.

He slapped some carpeting on it, asked around to see if a tent company would donate an endless piece of slippery tarp (thank you, Mahaffey Tent and Party Rentals!), and -- sure enough -- a water slide.

It's not like any water slide you'd ever see at Disney, but that's exactly the point.

Here, you can go flying off the slide and into the woods. Or you can bust your butt on a root.

"It's the sweetest camp you can imagine," said Geski.

And it costs just $110 a week this summer, including a hot lunch.

But that's not why the kids keep coming back, year after year, as campers, then as counselors-in- training, then as full-fledged counselors.

They understand what some of us parents don't: That you can have fun without the use of light shows and lasers. That life is better when it's lived beyond the flat screen.

An actual quote from Trip Gintz who, along with Geski, serves as co-director of the camp: "No. They're not walking in the creek today. They're putting peanut butter on their faces and seeing how many Goldfish they can get to stick."

At press time, there was no official answer. Try it yourself and see.

Alec Ogg, 20, has been coming to Mud Camp since he was 6 years old. Now he goes to college in Florida, but he still comes back to work as a counselor.

"Why?" he said. "Cicadas, bug spray, Popsicles, jumping in the lake."

Things not appearing on Alec's list: laptop or an iPhone.

Which is not to say those things don't have their place in our lives. Of course they do. But we all understand the importance of a laptop. How many understand the importance of creative play?